Louise gives the techies their space but leans over for a look. The deceased is a white male, around forty. Big guy, over six feet, solidly put together. Shirtless, wearing off-white chino trousers. No shoes. Socks are charcoal with polka dots bearing the brand name Ferragamo.
Wedding ring, she also notes.
There is bruising by the sternum, surrounding a puncture wound.His body is loose, flaccid; rigor mortis has passed. The facial features are sunken, his skin bluish-gray in color, mouth slacked open, eyes half closed. There’s a little bloating, not necessarily as much as she’d expect, but that tells her something right there. The man has probably spent most of his tenure as a corpse outdoors, with ambient temps in the thirties and forties, significantly slowing decomposition.
He’s been dead about three days, her guess, though she’ll wait for the M.E.
“ID?” Cutty asks, running his hand over his balding head.
“No,” says Nardulli. “No wallet, no phone. But we ran it through Missing Persons.”
“Any likelies?”
“One. A Finley Brice. Reported missing yesterday. Lives in Grace Village. One of the beautiful people.”
Louise smirks. Lifelong residents of Grace Park, in her experience, do not always have the nicest things to say about the people in their more affluent sister town of Grace Village.
“All right,” she says. “Hey, Money, what are we thinking for a weapon?”
“Oh, hey, Lou,” says Monique, the lead on the crime scene unit, looking over her shoulder. “Something thin. Ice pick, letter opener, gardening stake, something like that.”
“Mmm-hmm. And…no blood trail?”
“Nope. He’s been dead a while. The fatal wound, you figure the weapon corked it all inside. And gravity helped. All the lividity’s on the posterior.”
Meaning he spent most of his time, while dead, on his back. Louise walks over to the dumpster, just partially full. “Did we trace this load?”
Officer Nardulli flips through his notes. “Jobsite north of here, Grace Park. Picked up yesterday evening.”
“So he was likely in that bin when it left the site?”
“Looks that way. That’s what the supervisor thought, too.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Bag and tag everything from thisload, Jimmy. I want the full route from the hauler—time stamps, drivers, stops. I want to talk to whoever signed off on the pickup. And I want a list of everyone on that jobsite.”
Nardulli nods. “Got it.”
Louise allows a begrudging smile. “She was good,” she says. “Staged it well. Got him away from the crime scene. Bought her some time and distance.”
“Who’s that, Lou?” he asks. “You said ‘she.’ ”
“The wife,” says Louise. “Or the mistress. But more likely the wife.”
Officer Nardulli lowers his notepad, reading her.
She winks at him, then smirks at Cutty. She’s kidding. Kinda.
The three of them stand under the humming fluorescent lights in the hallway of the Cook County Morgue. Cutty bends a stick of gum in his mouth and checks his phone. Allison Brice, dressed in a cotton shirt and stretch pants, folds her arms and tucks her chin. Perhaps a defensive posture, but even Louise must admit, the morgue is always so damn cold.
Allison reported her husband, Finley Brice, missing yesterday, April 3. They were estranged, she’d told the officer, negotiating the terms of a divorce. She stayed in the house in Grace Village. He was living in their downtown condominium on Erie Street. Louise looked up the condo online; fancy place, rich-person place, floor-to-ceiling windows with unobstructed views of the lake. Not surprising, considering Finley was wearing Ferragamo socks, for Christ’s sake, when they found his body.
Not that Allison’s identified him yet. But she will. Louise looked up Finley on social media, on a website regarding some start-up venture capital opportunity. No doubt he’s the man they found this morning.
The door opens. The attendant acknowledges them. Allison pushes herself off the wall and enters the viewing room.Too composed, Louise thinks to herself.Too still. True grief wears many faces, takes manydifferent forms, no two the same, but there is always an element of struggle—struggle to maintain control, to tamp down the roiling chaos, to keep one foot moving in front of the other despite the pain.
Allison Brice is focused. She is concentrating. But not struggling. Not trembling. Her voice does not shake. She hasn’t so much as blinked hard. No, she is in complete control.
Louise glances toward the morgue attendant, who slowly peels back the top portion of the sheet. Allison leans over from the waist. She holds her stare on the body, her arms still folded. Her lips part. Maybe a quick intake of air; Louise isn’t sure.
